The Guide to a New Lamp
by prpis
Summary: A L.A.M.P. will try to make its owner as happy as possible. It has all a genie might need, and much more. Even if it means sacrificing the genie's own freedom; at least, that's what Jafar believes. Itty bittity living space is only to the human eye.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: This fic is a prologue to a xover I'm workin on, but it stands alone as a regular Aladdin fic. I don't even know why I put so much detail into this, but I thought the dynamics of a lamp and having Jafar and Iago argue in the later chapters was good enough for a separate fic.

Oh, and by the way, this could be an AU since The Return of Jafar never happens.

So, in the spirit of the new Starkid musical, which will star Jafar, of course, Aladdin's Broadway musical coming out next year, and the movie's own 20th anniversary (which was last year woopeitty doo): I present...whatever the heck this is.

* * *

"Shut up! Just shut up you stupid bird!" Jafar yelled, attempting to block out the parrot's nagging.

"-and you just had to listen to the rat's cute little testimony! _Obviously_ he wanted you to gain more power as a genie," Iago screeched, sarcastic. "It's not like he was _against_ you or anything. What other reason would he have except to _trick you!_" His tone became icy and accusing. "But it's not like you noticed or anything like you usually do-"

"Alright, fine!" Jafar spat, finally giving in. "I was wrong for getting in over my head, if it makes you so happy!" He pointed upwards to what he thinks is the roof in this darkness, to the only thing that mattered now. "Now get outside and get me out of here!"

"Hmm, I don't know," Iago said. "Do you really want me to be _your_ master?"

Jafar heard a hint of rebellion in his voice, as if he had other plans for the failed sorcerer turned genie. He took in his surroundings and circumstance. Being stuck in a lamp for all eternity, in this roomy darkness where he can't see his hand in front of his face, and having no idea of his location. Or tricking Iago somehow to do his will.

"Anywhere's better than this trench," Jafar replied, looking over the lamp in disgust.

Iago gave a satisfied grunt, and Jafar heard the flapping of his wings as he took off towards the above.

Jafar had to wait a good two minutes until, as he impatiently tapped his foot, he heard a dull 'bonk' above him.

"Hey, Jafar!" Iago echoed.

"What is it now?" he called back, annoyed.

"There's no opening up here!"

"Then try the sides and see if there's something loose, or just try hitting it again!"

Jafar heard a couple of bangs, telling him that the bird took his advice. He gave a sly grin as he thought how easy it would be to manipulate the bird to his whim, especially since he's listening to him again. Although the parrot had a thinking head on his shoulders, he could be easily turned by the right words and guidance, no matter what it was.

Iago called out again, interrupting his thoughts.

"Nope, nothin'!" he said, fed up. "There's nothin' up here, not a bulge and no chimneys! And worst of all, my head is sore! We're stuck in this stupid, dark lamp while those dumb teenagers have a party without us! If I see that boy's dumb face again I'll-"

"Calm down already, Iago!" Jafar shouted over him, not ready to let anger and panic take over him just yet at the situation. "You just haven't looked hard enough. Now, if only we had some sort of light, maybe then-"

"Lights on," a monotone female voice said. Said lights flickered on to illuminate the entire room as Iago squawked in surprise.

"Thank you," Jafar said, gratified and relieved. But the relief left as fast as it came and his eyes grew huge. "Wait, who said that?"

"I did," the voice said.

Iago landed on Jafar's shoulder in a hurried huff. Jafar, for the first time since he was sucked into the lamp, realized he was in his human form, in his sorcerer outfit. "What in the world is _that_?" Iago gaped and pointed with his wing towards the ceiling. There were three pairs of rectangles protruding white light onto the large blue room. There were also other little light fixtures around the walls with designs on them. To say the pair of onlookers were amazed was an understatement.

"Those are fluorescent lights," the voice answered. "'A fluorescent lamp or fluorescent tube is a gas-discharge lamp that uses electricity to excite mercury vapor. The excited mercury atoms produce short-wave ultraviolet light that then causes a phosphor to fluoresce, producing visible light.' Source: Wikipedia."

"Amazing," Jafar whispered, delighted. He inched his way towards one of the fixtures and slithered his fingers over it, in a trance-like state, ignoring the burn.

"Uh, hello!" Iago said, waving his wing in front of Jafar's face. "Anyone home?"

Jafar blinked a couple of times and shook his head, snapping out of the trance. He looked back to the ceiling. "And what are you supposed to be?" he asked the voice.

"I am your Leading Assistance and Management Personnel," it said. "Otherwise known as 'your L.A.M.P.' My purpose: to keep you and your personal pet-" "Hey!" "-safe and happy. My second purpose: to educate you on the future's popular culture, sciences and history. If you are released in such a time period, there will be new standards on what people want to wish for.

"For example, if someone would wish for a new car, you would not know what that is. So it is my purpose for you to know, to the best of my ability."

"So, in other words, you're our prison warden," Jafar said, unemotional.

"Yes."

"Swell. Just swell."

"As you may see behind you, I have everything you may need to understand the culture of the 21st century."

At the word, Jafar and Iago stole a worried glance at each other, and turned their heads. They both gasped at what they saw. The room has expanded to ten times its size to not only include a humongous living room with large, luxurious couches, tables, chairs and several shelves of books. But that was not what the pair was most surprised about.

Covering the entirety wall was a gigantic black screen, included on each side of it was a box about the height of the screen. Scattered around the room were other little screens, but they had pads with tiny keys on them, while the other even smaller screens had no such pads.

"That big screen is called an 'HD Television'", the Lamp said. "The screens with the keys are called 'laptops' or 'notebooks'. And the smaller screens are called 'iPads', copyright to Apple Corporation."

The pair still had their mouths hanging. Iago was the first to come back down to reality. "But what the heck _are_ they?" he asked.

"They are to help you understand popular culture."

The Lamp gave detailed explanations, history information and how-tos on all the several electronics in the living room and throughout the other rooms; such as the game room with its fully stocked arcade, karaoke machine, and sports tables. The kitchen with its toaster oven, refrigerator and other assorted electronics; the garden with its very own 5000 acre golf course etc, etc.

Jafar and Iago's surprise and excitement over these future instruments silently died down as they understood how they all came into being, thanks to the Lamp's unending and boring drawling, so tiredness started settling in. Their curiosity for this era were still peaked, yes; but stealing a lamp, making three wishes, becoming ruler of a kingdom, kissing the princess, then becoming the most powerful being in the world for then to be foiled could make anyone tired.

After what seemed like forever, the Lamp finished its grand tour, and they decided to hit the hay. They each had their own bedroom. Jafar's is a sultan's master bedroom, with windows to the fake garden, the finest silk for his king size bed, with wallpaper and quilts symbolizing his favorite color: red. Iago's room, on the other wing, was just a fancier and more expensive version of his bird-cage, except it was the size of a regular bedroom.

Before falling asleep, Jafar took a chance in asking the Lamp a question.

"On the off-chance of you having this," he said, casual and waving his hand around. "Do you know if there is some sort of exit to get back to the city?"

"None."

"No trap doors?"

"No."

"No hidden rooms or bookshelves?"

"Negative."

Jafar remained calm and continued smiling. "Alright then," he said. "Do you know if you have, say, a special type of room where you wouldn't hear us talk to each other, hm?" He put on his most innocent smile, as if the Lamp could see him.

"There is no such room or section, for it does not matter. I hear and feel everything that happens. But, if you like, you could tell me when to not hear your conversations until further notice."

Jafar didn't take comfort in this since he still doubted the Lamp, but it's the closest thing he would get now. He'll vocalize his thoughts to Iago in the morning, or, in a worse case scenario, he would have to teach him how to read them on paper. He just hoped the Lamp wasn't intelligent enough to get the gist of his actions.

"Thank you," he said in a fake genuine voice while he scowled. He opened his mouth to tell the Lamp to turn off the lights, but it interrupted him.

"If you do not mind, since I have waited to ask you this while your pet was not around, I do have a special cream to treat your baldness, if you like."

Jafar's hand unconsciously went to his uncovered head. His scowl became severe.

"I thought you couldn't see," he ground out.

"Yes, but I can feel. And I felt your bald head as you took your shower."

Jafar's eye twitched. He scowled even harder.

"_Turn off the _LIGHTS!" he yelled at the last word, and it became dark. "And don't bother to wake me!" He slammed his head against the pillow and started counting sheep.


	2. Chapter 2

Hooray for exposition! Obviously I'm not very good at updating regularly exactly every week, or doing anything at all. And apparently I've never given a disclaimer for this story (even though the site already gave me one.)

So heres to tradition.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything except the story, and anything else that was never made clear by Disney. So don't sue, I'm poor.

* * *

The sounds of loud squawking and clanking woke Jafar up in the morning. Still groggy, he looked around the room in confusion. "Wait," he said. "Where am-" Then, like a ton of bricks, he remembered what happened yesterday. He sneered at the memories, and then at the ceiling. "I thought I had told you to not-"

"There! How do ya like that, Monkey Kong!" Jafar heard from outside, undoubtedly Iago. There was some more clanking. "How do ya like them bananas?" Iago laughed.

Jafar got up, changed his sleeping gown, washed up and went down to find the parrot. He found him sitting in the living room, on the couch, between the cushions, with a video game controller and various snacks. He was in the middle of playing something.

"Looks like someone's gotten used to their new home rather quickly," Jafar remarked.

"Eh, you know us parrots," Iago said, eyes still glued to the screen. "We adapt very easily to our surroundings."

Jafar saw there were bags under Iago's eyes. "How long have you been up?" he asked.

"I dunno. Couple o' hours," Iago replied. "Funny story, I woke up at around two last night to use the little bird's room, so I went to the kitchen to get a glass o' water. When I was headin' back, I took a detour through here, and I wanted to try out some o' these doohickeys. And then, c'est la vie. And it took me a good hour to get used to the controller, but what can ya do?"

Jafar looked at the clock and saw it was nine in the morning, Middle Eastern time.

"Lamp," Jafar said. "Save Iago's game, please."

Suddenly, the game's saving screen appeared on the big screen. "Saved," the Lamp said.

"Good," Jafar said. He walked over to the TV set.

"Now, hey, wait a second," Iago protested. Jafar unplugged the TV, and the screen went black. "Hey!" Iago said, flying over to Jafar. "I was playing that!" Jafar grabbed Iago's neck, choking him.

"Not," Jafar whispered in a grim tone. "Another word. I need to talk to you." He glanced up to the ceiling. "Lamp, don't listen to our conversation until I tell you to."

"Listening feature deactivated until further notice."

"Which is until I notice you've been listening to us the entire time," Jafar muttered to himself, letting go of the parrot and dropping him on the floor.

He cleared his throat. "Now, to the matter at hand. According to my little chat with our warden last night, I specifically asked if there were any exits that would take us back to Agrabah, and there were none. So, I have garnered three suspicions from this answer."

He counted them on his fingers. "One, there might be an exit, or _exits_, that would send us someplace if we entered. Two, we will not ask the Lamp if it knows, in case it will further us from our search and lock us in here forever until the lamp is rubbed, especially since I already overstepped my luck last night with asking if there was an exit back to the city, and if there was a way it couldn't listen to us. Ergo, I asked it not to listen."

"I don't think the Lamp's smart enough to put the two together anyways," Iago added. "It's been actin' like a mindless dictionary and servant all day to me. With the history of video games, the console, the controller, the characters, the whole wazoo." He massaged his temples. "As if I didn't have enough o' a headache last night."

"That brings me to my last point, my mistrust toward this 'mindless' warden. My suspicions tell me not to believe in anything the Lamp says, since it needs to keep us in here at all times. Of course it wouldn't tell us anything about its exits; it needs to keep us in here as long as it can. It could be eavesdropping on us right now."

"With all due respect, Jafar," Iago said with mock politeness. "But let me break this down for ya," He started talking in a tone that seemed like he was talking to a five-year old about how airplanes worked. "We're in a lamp; you're the genie in the lamp. I'm stuck here with ya. The lamp itself keeps us in here until somebody rubs it, and makes three wishes. While we're here, the lamp serves us."

His voice suddenly became louder. "So how could a stupid lamp lie to us about something it doesn't have?! It's a _lamp_ for cryin' out loud. How could it have exits if its only job is _to keep us in here?_ 'Specially since that blue genie was stuck in there for who knows how long until the pipsqueak got him out."

"It was the same way the Lamp's tricked you. With all of _this_," He indicates the luxuries. "It's a palace, in all of its forms. Except one thing's missing: the freedom of going outside the palace. The Genie was obviously just used to the lamp making decisions for him and loved the luxury, so he didn't want out.

"I, on the other hand, will be different," he said in a smug matter. "I would actually look for my freedom, wherever it may be, even if you don't believe in my theories. I won't stop until I've turned this entire lamp on its side."

"Yeah, that's because you're desperate," Iago muttered, skeptical about finding a nonexistent exit. "Personally, I find it pretty annoying how you don't even listen to me half of the time. Look," he said to Jafar. "I think your takin' this whole 'genie in a bottle' thing to seriously. Why don't ya just, I dunno, relax a bit. I could show ya how cool the graphics in the game are." He smiled hopefully.

Jafar looked slightly annoyed at the bird. "I will not loaf around like you do. _And_, unlike you, I've actually gotten over the shock of all of this technology. And, now that I think about it, I wonder if all of this junk was just made specifically for us. "

"What, I'm not allowed to enjoy all of this for now?" Iago defended. "And, really Jafar, could a lamp made in five seconds make up all of this, history and everything?" He rolled his eyes, scoffing. "So, how exactly are ya gonna find your so called 'freedom'" He air quoted.

Jafar cracked a smile for the first time today after finally getting parrot to join him. "I have it entirely planned out. First, I'll check the library for any information on genie lamps-"

"Day Two of the genie education activated, sending _The Rules, History and Guide of Geniedom and Lamps._"

A book fell from the ceiling and it plopped unto Jafar's head, making him dizzy as he fell on the floor. Iago was in hysterics, also falling on the floor but with laughter.

Jafar struggled to get the guide off of him. "Why you dirty- you _have_ been listening to us," he said, scowling. "I knew this would happen." He looked at the book. "And I will not read anything that's straight from you, or anything in the library for that matter. Obviously, they've been tampered with." He got up and put the book aside. "I shall find a way out myself." He glanced at the bird. "Coming, Iago?"

Iago was still laughing as he as he flew to his usual spot. He started calming himself. "I still think you're taking this 'captive vs. captor' relationship a bit far. But once we're done with today, I got a little something to show you on the laptop."

"What is it?"

Iago cracked a malicious, toothy grin. "You'll see."

* * *

Thanks to Eternal Sidekick for a fav. yay.

I accept the harshest reviews. Really.


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